Pucked Up (Pucked 2)

“You’re the most disgusting person in the entire world, Buck. Seriously. I’m going to assume they’re yours because you were tagged. Plus the shrinky-dink seems about the right size for you.”

“My balls are swollen. It makes my dick look way smaller than it is.”

“So it is a picture of your dick!”

“I didn’t say that!” Shit. I hate it when Violet gets up to her trickery.

“Yes, you did!”

“Didn’t.”

“Di—I’m not playing this game with you. It’s your dick. I recognize the shorts. You wore them the last time I saw you, jerkface. What I want to know is how and why it ended up all over social media. You’re supposed to be at a camp, not flashing your balls all over the place. Plus there’s another picture of you in the same damn shorts with a Sunny look-a-like hanging off you. She’s been posting the picture everywhere, which wouldn’t be so bad if the one of your damn balls wasn’t right beside it. You better not be messing around on Sunny. Alex won’t have to kick your ass. I will!”

“Hold on.”

“Don’t tell me to hold on—”

I take the phone away from my ear. I can still hear her giving me shit as I type in a search of my name + dick. The first link is a medical site with the picture Randy took, along with the question. “What kind of spider bite causes this sort of swelling?”

After that is the group photo with me and my unfortunately swollen nuts. My balls are circled in red, and Sunny’s Doppelganger has reposted it, along with the ball pic. And she’s also posted one where she cropped everyone else out but the two of us and made it her damn profile picture. So much for her concern about me. It’s amazing how quickly pictures I don’t want circulating can go viral within the span of a couple hours.

There’s nothing I can do to stop this trainwreck now that it’s happened. I go to my own social media profiles to find I’ve been tagged by an insane number of people. There’s loads of bunny love offering to come take care of my balls for me, and wishing me a speedy recovery.

“It looks bad, doesn’t it?”

“Bad? It looks like you’re messing around on Sunny with someone who looks like Sunny! How am I supposed to help you when things like this keep showing up?”

I scrub a palm over my face. “This relationship is doomed to fail.” I explain what happened with the whole spider bite fiasco.

“Well, I see what you’re saying, but I still think maybe you’re right,” she mutters. “It’s doomed if you keep pulling stunts like this. I don’t even know what to say to you anymore.”

“Thanks a lot, Vi. You’re an awesome source of support.”

She sighs. “I love you, Buck, but sometimes you make it harder than it needs to be. Why aren’t you posting pictures of you with all the kids at the camp? You must have taken a million of them by this point. You always do. You need to jam your feed with something positive, not all this garbage about your balls being swollen.”

“It takes the altruism out of it if I post the pics of the camp.”

“No, it doesn’t. Not even a little. All those kids’ families sign a waiver for that purpose.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I read the emails Amber sends me. We’ve been over this before. I get that this is personal for you, but it doesn’t help anyone if you aren’t more vocal about all the good things you do. How do you expect to inspire other people if you keep it to yourself? All the positive things get shoved under the blanket of hockey hooker pics. Your life isn’t a frat party, but that’s the only version of you that people see. You’ve got all these great plans, but you’re not doing anything to promote your goals—unless your plan is to set up a hockey hooker support group.”

I stare up at the sky, a million stars winking at me. Violet has a point. Amber has been on me about this for a long time. She’s been asking me to be more of a spokesperson for the charities I support. I need to put some energy into following through. The offseason is a good time to get this ball rolling, and do something on my own. My end goal is to create a foundation so fundraisers for deserving kids and their families are ongoing.

“Okay, Vi. I hear what you’re saying. I’ll put a few posts up about the camp. I also have an idea where I want to start with a project I manage. I’m thinking a charity game might go over well, especially preseason. I’ll talk to Amber, and we can start planning when I get back to Chicago. And I’ll email Dad and get him in on it since he’s got so many contacts.”